WIXLIAM AND MAEY.

105

priests had stood up against the tyranny of the late King: butit was equally true that, but for the obstinacy with which they-had opposed the Exclusion Bill, he never would have beenKing, and that, hut for their adulation and their doctrine ofpassive obedience, he would never have ventured to be guiltyof such tyranny. Their chief business, during a quarter ofa century, had been to teach the people to cringe and the princeto domineer. They were guilty of the blood of Russell, ofSidney, of every brave and honest Englishman who had beenput to death for attempting to save the realm from Popery anddespotism. Never had they breathed a whisper against arbitrarypower till arbitrary power began to menace their own propertyand dignity. Then, no doubt, forgetting all their old common-places about submitting to Nero, they had made haste to savethemselves. Grant, — such was the cry of these eagerdisputants, — grant that, in saving themselves, they savedthe constitution. Are we therefore to forget that they hadpreviously endangered it? And are we to reward them by nowpermitting them to destroy it? Here is a class of men closelyconnected with the state. A large part of the produce of thesoil has been assigned to them for their maintenance. Theirchiefs’have seats in the legislature, wide domains, stately palaces.By this privileged body the groat mass of the population islectured every week from the chair of authority. To this privi-leged body has been committed the supreme direction of liberaleducation. Oxford and Cambridge, Westminster, Winchester,and Eton, are under priestly government. By the priesthoodwill to a great extent be formed the character of the nobilityand gentry of the next generation. Of the higher clergy somehave in their gift numerous and valuable benefices; others havethe privilege of appointing judges who decide grave questionsaffecting the liberty, the property, the reputation of theirMajesties’ subjects. And is an order thus favoured by the state

CHAP.

XI.

I6S9.